The theme of the poem is growing up. Heaney uses Mother Nature to exemplify how a child changes as he grows up. He uses a lot of vivid imagery to communicate his ideas with us. With Heaney's detailed descriptions, we can depict the child's thoughts, mood and age. The imageries provide us with a full picture of what is happening.

I am struck by how Heaney's imagery and descriptions can reflect the maturity of the speaker. In the first stanza, his use of detailed imagery, such as "warm thick slobber" and "jampotfuls of the jellied specks" give readers feelings of innocence and naivety. The speaker, who is a child, embraces nature in all its forms as well as its unpleasantness. The use of words such as "rotted" and "festered" did not frighten the child. On the contrary, they fascinate him, showing how enthusiastic the child is about almost...